


it only hurts when i breathe

by oftachancer



Series: here in this moment [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Heart to Hearts, M/M, Multi, Multiverse, Secret Relationship, Spirit Sex, Threesome, Time Travel, dragon fights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-08-16 21:46:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16503281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oftachancer/pseuds/oftachancer
Summary: Aran Trevelyan - the seventh scion of Ostwick's Bann Trevelyan - had led a sheltered life at the Starkhaven Chantry as a historian and archivist's assistant. He's survived possession by a demon and having a piece of the Fade permanently stuck in his palm, the destruction of Haven, and a ragged seven-year journey through time and space.Now, back to a time after his original disappearance, Aran is trying to find a way to preserve the world he left. While Dorian and Cole have the more difficult task of trying to keep him sane and find a way for him to stay with them.





	1. a brand new set of wings

He could see the imprints of his own fingers on those pale, pale hips. Four small red smudges on endless planes of skin so fair it was nearly translucent. In point of fact, he could trace the veins beneath Cole’s skin, branching tendrils of blue-green like distant rivers or the new growth of ivy. He could watch the flex of bones within narrow fingers as he collected fur and blanket and carefully tucked both around Aran. Around Dorian. Spooling them together for warmth. If he minded one way or another that Dorian was observing every move he made, he didn’t show it.

And Dorian was watching. Closely.

Never. In any of his wildest, most obscene, debauched fantasies had he expected… that. That. Had been. Something.

Wondrous.

Absolutely fucking terrifying.

He’d lost himself - his mind and heart all splayed open messily as Cole contorted through them. And Aran- Maker save them both. There and not there, the flickering outline of Cole’s eyes, shoulders, hands visible through and around Aran. Through Dorian. Inside of him. Inside of them both, Andraste help him. Not possession - he knew what possession looked like - but too damned close for words. For thought. And he was enough of a libidinous traitor to humanity to not only enjoy that but revel in it. Until reason began to come back to him in excruciatingly slow, tiny waves.

Worse than he’d thought. It was worse than he’d thought and now he was not only an observer but a party to it.

Obscene.

If he’d been far, far, far away from every other living soul, on some remote island with only himself and Cole and Aran, he would have leaped onto the spirit/man/Voidsentemissaryofecstasy and begged him to do it again, more. But he wasn’t. And he wasn’t an idiot. This would get them all killed. Every one of them. Especially Cole and himself. He had absolutely no questions on this score.

His heart was pounding in his throat, fear stretching him thin and cold and he was grateful for the blankets. Of course he was. That was Cole. Thoughtful to his dying breath. Compassion incarnate. A little Wisdom wouldn’t have been too much to ask for, would it?

Cole winced.

“Come back,” Aran mumbled, “you look cold.”

He doesn’t get cold, Dorian thought. He doesn’t bleed or eat or sleep. He’s a spirit. But Aran was right. He did look cold. Maybe it was the pallor or the shiver that seemed to ripple just under his skin. He wasn’t cold, though; Dorian knew he wasn’t. Very well now, in fact. Cole was warm. Always. Every brush of his skin was like a summer breeze. He didn’t need to bleed, but he could weep and, Maker, he could come like a river. Despite his best interests and the general interests of all of their survival, Dorian held out a hand, “Come on.”

Cole stared at him, haunted overwide summerblue eyes incredulous, but he took the offered hand. Knowing. It was a narrow, narrow path they walked together: this process of trying to care for Aran, keep him sane and whole, maybe even bring him back entirely from the edge he seemed incredibly likely to topple over. They were relative strangers to each other, bound together by the same man and the same task, but there had been something - something eerie and magnificent - in that joining. Not a resolution, but a hint. A droplet that had the potential of becoming… a glass? A river? An ocean?

He forced himself not to flinch as Cole’s fingers brushed his face, gently, carefully smoothing his mustache and correcting its mashed curl.

To the bloody letter.

Aran exhaled a contented sigh.

He’s going to get me killed, Dorian thought. One way or another. Sooner or later. Please let it be much, much later.

Cole slipped under the blanket on the opposite side of Aran. “You can sleep if you want to.”

 _Sleep_ _how_? He felt scorched, torn asunder, precipice balanced. “The wards-”

“I can be the wards. They won’t see me.” He tilted his head, blonde cornsilk falling across his eyes - ah, Maker, so like Aran’s had been before it had been bleached by… shock? Magic?

“Is it always like that?”

Cole tugged at his own hair, trying to look at it, “I think so.”

“No- not- is this… always like… this.”

“More intense this time.”

“We're camping. Of course, it’s in tents,” Aran yawned.

Dorian choked on his laugh while Aran stretched between them, smirking lazily. “Incorrigible.”

“Dorian's right, though. That was…” He eyed Cole. “A lot. How are you doing?”

“Full of things. Tangled and woven. Filled and empty.” His tongue dabbed, eyes darted. “It was very nice, though. Like a scran.”

“Yeah,” Aran agreed, fervent in the rumble of his chest. “Yeah. Very.”

They were both looking at him again. “Stop that,” Dorian muttered. If they kept turning to him as one, all curious and fragmented, they were all going to fall down the same rabbit hole they’d- well. He was the rabbit hole in this scenario and he already couldn’t imagine riding a horse in a few hours. He could still taste Cole’s cum on the back of his tongue, his palate. And it tasted. So. Good. “Stop. I mean it.” When- _when_ had he, of all people, become the voice of argument against pure hedonistic pleasure? 

“You think and want different things so often.”

“Yes, well.” Cole's voice was doing things, low things, to Dorian’s exhausted, sated body. _Sated, do you hear me,_ he called internally. _Don’t even think of twitching awake again._

“Dorian?” Aran asked softly.

“Yes, very nice. Exceedingly so.” He cleared his throat, “That little trick, Cole, when you dip into someone's mind and take a drink? Do you choose what you're looking for, or is it random?”

“It has to be hurt, or a way to help the hurt. That's what calls me.”

“But some of the things you said- some of the thoughts you spoke of mine- they weren’t about hurt.”

“They were about healing.” Gentle blue tugged, making his tongue ache. “You need sex to heal as much as you need elfroot and mana. The good kind. Where you’re seen.” He carefully pushed his bangs back. “I need to be seen, too. I understand. It’s scary to feel like you’re not really there, even when they’re looking right at you.”

“It is,” Dorian sighed deeper as Aran’s fingers wound through his. He didn’t want to understand. He wanted this to be a purely physical one-time- No. Of course, he didn’t. He could lie to them, but not to himself. “Does it hurt you? All those thoughts catapulting through you?”

“Does it hurt you?”

“No, but they’re my thoughts. They belong in my head.”

“Not all of them.”

Dorian opened his mouth. Shut it. “You have me there.”

Aran grunted softly, snuggling deeper under the blanket and fur.

“I’m not done with you,” Dorian poked his shoulder.

“You are for tonight. Everything I had, I left in you.”

He ran his tongue over his teeth. “Swear to me, Aran, that you will not under any circumstances ever let anyone else know about what you - we - have done with him. Or anything else you’ve done with him, ever, anywhere, at any time. Not the sex. Definitely not the… melding.”

Aran frowned.

“The Templars wanted to kill me just for helping,” Cole murmured. “He’s right.”

“Of course I am,” Dorian cast a grateful glance to the spirit. Cole's soft pink nipple was bruised where Dorian had tugged and pinched, groaning, mouth full of that brandyrich cock- He cleared his throat.

“You should be careful, too,” Cole said somberly. “It’s not just me who sees things in your eyes.”

True. Too true.

“But if they don’t see- can-” Cole paused. “I’d like to try it again, with less and more. And then again? I like the skinstretching.” Aran kissed his bruised nipple gently, drawing a sigh from the blonde.

"I thought you said you were finished."

Aran shrugged, "I was wrong."

“Damn,” Dorian groaned as Aran drew him closer to them. “Just… quietly. Alright, lunatics?”


	2. their humanity

It was a path that had been traveled many times before by different feet; hooves and wheels made deeper grooves even though their impact was less. Cloudtears were gathering on their faces, but his cheeks were dry thanks to the hat that Dorian abhorred. Abhorred. The words in the mage's mind tasted like vinegar and dried ginger.

If there were a faster way, they should have taken it, but the scout in Lothering had said they should take the southern route even though it took more time. The scout didn’t know how angry the larger hawk was, though. Maybe if he had known, he would have said something else. The tears were probably going to be colder when they reached the next rise. Or the one after that. Mountains could be fickle when they wanted to be.

“How are you holding up, Kid?” Varric. _The stone echoes in his dreams, louder than before, ever since they told him about the Deep Roads._

“My spine is connected to my head and my hips. It works the same way yours does.”

“Yeah. You work the same way I do, the same way Quicksilver and Hawke do. Don’t let her get to you. We’ve got your back. She’s just had… a rough time of it.”

“Marble shatters into fragments like her heart. _My friend, I trusted you, how could you_?”

“Yeah, that.” The dwarf sighed, “You've been quiet for a while. Ever since she got here. I’m just saying- you don’t have to keep to yourself. You’re not alone.”

“My shoelaces keep coming untied.”

Varric chuckled, “You're doing fine, Kid.”

“Can you talk to them? They don't listen to me.”

“Maybe not so fine... Don't talk to them, Kid. Just tie them in knots.”

“There are too many things tied in knots right now.”

“Hell if that isn’t the truth.” His hand - _papercuts on his fingers that sting when he oils Bianca_ \- claps Cole on the shoulder companionably. “Maybe try bows instead.” Cole nods because the movement of his head makes the dwarf feel like he’s done something not just on paper. “I’m proud of you, you know. Not long ago, you would have made her forget you when she started lashing out.”

“She’s not angry with me. She’s angry with Anders.” _Like sunshine on the uneasy ocean waves and sometimes she forgot._

“And Aran,” Varric frowned.

 _Should be wiser, those fragments of cobbles all uneven, spangles of silvery frost upon the grass._ “She doesn’t know him well enough to be angry with him.”

“You don’t have to know someone to hate them, Kid.”

“Hurt isn’t hate.” Cole looked up at the sun, forgetting, then lifting his hand a moment later to shade his eyes like he’d seen the others do, even though he liked the way the light warmed the backs of his pupils when he looked straight into it, it wouldn’t do to scare them. “Why doesn’t four of a kind have a name? Or three?” He frowned. “If two of a kind is a pair. Why isn’t four of a kind something else? Why does it have to be only in twos?”

“Because those are the rules.”

“Are they the same rules for everyone?”

“Except for the cheaters.”

“Oh.” If I am a cheater, he thought, then I can have three of a kind. It is the best kind.

“Not a bad idea, Kid. A game of Wicked Grace might be just what the healer ordered to even out some of the tempers around here.”

That wasn’t why he’d asked, but it didn’t matter. It was a good idea, even if it wasn’t his. “Four of a kind beats two pairs. _She slips the ace of dragons into a thigh-high boot, calls to the barman for another round. Blondie stares at the table, angry, always angry_.”

“Focus. You can’t beat four of a kind with bad memories.”

“I don’t need to win the game. Only the people.”

“Now you’re getting it. Maybe all that time you’ve been spending with Quicksilver and Buttercup’s been good for you after all.”

“ _Needles of frost in handfuls at his cheeks and, of the light wreaths of his smoking breath, wove a white fringe for his brown beard_ -” There. Colder. Soon the fractured frozen rain would brush the grasses like glass shards but not so sharp. “ _Voices like the sound of crisp snow._ A storm is coming.” They were riding shoulder to shoulder at the lead, ahead, but he felt them looking at him, warm, touches of consciousness. “ _To them, the sun’s warm beams are full of fury_.”

“So, set up camp or keep moving?” Varric called ahead, “Kid says there’s a storm rolling in. I’d rather not be caught in the Frostbacks under a pile of snow.”

“ _Eyes like plates, frozen and forsaken- if only they’d looked on the other sides of the trees_.”

Varric chuckled uneasily, “Yeah. I’m calling camp.”


	3. where the storms blow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the tense band of heroes heads down into Emprise du Lion on their way to the Western Approach, they meet some icy enemies. Death-defying stunts and dragons! (Yes. It's... just read it. I hate summaries.)

“Mountains. Cold.” Dorian gritted his teeth as they rode down the slope. His mount stumbled on a rock hidden beneath the heavy snow but recovered. “Oh, yes. Let’s bring Dorian! That seems like a fine idea.”

“Always,” Aran grinned. “Where else would we get our fire? Even Sera wouldn’t want to be starting a campfire with a flint and steel in this weather.”

“Yes,” the blonde elf muttered. “I would.”

“I think your dear friend Hawke has that covered now.”

Hawke looked back over her shoulder at them. Three weeks on the trail together had banked her rage, but it wasn’t gone. The embers still had the same potential as the conflagration. Varric was a great help, as always; perhaps unsurprisingly, given their history, he had a special way with the senior Hawke that made her more malleable. Organizing games of Wicked Grace, harkening back to times they’d shared in Kirkwall, talking smack about Sebastian and Merrill. And if Hawke noticed that Varric was drawing comparisons between another Chantry boy and mage pairing, she didn’t say anything.

Speaking of Chantry boys… Dorian let his gaze fall on Aran’s profile. He hadn’t shaved since they’d begun the climb through the Frostbacks and his stubble - a mix of white and gold - hid the branching scars on the side of his face. Between that and the high rabbit-skin collar, the fur-lined hood, it was tempting to forget that anything had changed. Tempting to think of him as the young man they’d all known. Even Varric seemed dead set against acknowledging that so much more had changed about the Inquisitor than his looks.

Years. Not months, but _years_ had passed for Aran, and they had not been kind. The stories Aran told were all glamor and glory, stealthy reckonings and seedy underbellies. But his scars, inside and out, told a very different tale. And his notebook - dates and names, oblique references in codes and ciphers that he avoided explaining… The Aran the Dorian had known had been a terrible liar, incapable of keeping a secret to save himself, and in some ways he still was. He still wore his heart on his sleeve. He still went out of his way for strangers. Maker, the cloak he wore now was one he’d made after he’d given his own away to a pilgrim making their way to Skyhold. But secrets… he had secrets now that he kept on purpose. And he seemed to have no intention of changing that.

“Copper for your thoughts?” the target of those thoughts asked, turning those dark, prismatic eyes to Dorian.

“I think I’ve shared them. Shall I reiterate? _Mountains_. _Cold_.” He blinked as the fur cloak landed across his saddle horn with a thump. He stared at it, remembering a similarly thrown cloak and far less snowy mountainside. _Months ago for me. Nearly a decade for him_. Not for the first time, he thought of the Archon, the other Dorian, who had spent more time with Aran than he himself had had the opportunity to know him at all. Not for the first time, he felt a nervous swell in response to that thought. ‘Relative ease,’ Aran had said so casually. Not tramping around the snow and mountains. Not fighting battles for survival, for allies, for… whatever. Hours, days, weeks, months; sipping wine and debating books they’d read and playing chess and cards and, and, and… He looked up from the cloak to find Aran smiling sideways.

“Now you say ‘thank you’,” Aran lifted his brows. “And I don’t ask why.”

He _remembered_. Dorian fingered the soft fur, his heart so full it might well burst. “You’ll catch your death,” he said, instead, and if his voice were a bit rough - well. It _was_ cold.

“Eh.” A shrug, a tilt of the head, “Can’t die of cold. I’ve got stuff to do.”

“Ah, yes, the immortality of ‘stuff to do’,” Dorian muttered, smirking.

Aran looked away. “Something like that.”

“Aran- can you tell me? Something. Anything. The more I know, the more I can do to help.” He frowned, “You can’t keep walking away from these things.”

“I’m not walking.”

“Don’t be juvenile.”

Aran glanced at him, nervous as that first day when they’d found him in the thaig. Looking, trying not to look, trying to look like he wasn’t looking. Hiding within layers of strangeness. “If I tell you,” he said softly. “It will change things. I don’t want to change things.”

“Things are _already_ changed. You left us; you were gone, dead to our reckoning, and now you’re back. The things you’ve gone through-”

“Don’t. Please,” his jaw tightened, eyes pleading.

“What you’ve experienced,” Dorian continued doggedly, “has changed you. Isn’t that what you were telling Grimna before? Experiences make us who we are? That what makes me different from the other- that what’s different is that we’ve dealt with things differently, had different lives? You’ve had a different life, away from us, all of us. We had a context for you before, for your leadership. Now-”

“You don’t trust me.”

Dorian scowled. “Don’t be obtuse, Aran. Of course, I trust you. I just don’t have reason to. Don’t pull away. Listen to me. I can see that the man I knew before is in there. I believe in you. But your experiences - including the ones you don’t want to talk about - have made you who you are now. And I-” He dabbed his lower lip with his tongue, searching for the right words. “I can’t stand you, you know. At least allow me to know you well enough to truly abhor you.”

Aran laughed, shakily, ducking his head. “You need a reason?”

Dorian held his cloak back out to him. “An excuse, then.”

He took the cloak, sweeping it around his shoulders, contemplative. “The truth?”

“As much of it as you can manage. I won’t ask for more than you can give.”

Aran smiled sadly. “No. You wouldn’t.” He held out his hand, his grip tighter than Dorian had expected when he offered his own. “I would- I would really like to think that if I- I’d like to think you really would hate me. With ferocity.”

“Ferocious hatred,” Dorian nodded. “I shall make a valiant effort.” The kiss to his gloved fingers was so tender, he felt his heart skip an actual beat.

“Uh… Boss?” They looked up to see the Iron Bull grinning like an absolute lunatic. Aran cocked his head to the side. “You _did_ say the next dragon we saw, right?” He pointed into the clouds, where the black spiked edges of a wing were disappearing.

Aran lifted his chin, “I did.”

“You can’t be serious,” Dorian muttered. “That thing is huge.”

“That’s what he said,” Sera chuckled.

“Today is a good day,” the Iron Bull beamed. “Today is a very good day.”

“What an excellent way to ruin a perfectly unpleasant ride through the freezing cold,” Dorian sighed.

 

* * *

 

High dragons, as it turned out, were exceedingly difficult to kill. Especially when they turned up one after another, the dying cries of one enormous beast calling yet another and all its pesky spawn. Or maybe it was the Iron Bull’s joyous shouts drawing them one by one. “Oh, would you look at that! That is magnificent!”

“A little less shouting, a little more hitting,” Dorian grunted, throwing yet another barrier over the Bull, the Templar, and the Warden.

“Aw, Dorian, you remembered!” The Iron Bull ducked under a swiping paw, “Warms my heart! You taking notes on this, Boss?” He looked around, “Boss?”

“Got it,” Aran had two daggers buried in the back thigh of the dragon, holding on as he drove his heels into its knee again and again. “Sex! Beating!” The blades protruding from his boots spattered the snow with blood. “Remind me to write it down when I get a minute!” He dragged his dagger out of the beast, arcing his arm up and over his head and shoved it in higher. Climbing. He was _climbing_ the dragon as though it were a wall. A very mobile wall. Of course he was. He was mad. 

“She’s taking off!” Stroud called.

Varric shouted, "Jump, Quicksilver-”

“See you in a minute!” Aran flattened himself against the beast’s flank as it soared up into the sky, screaming with rage and pain.

“Aran!” Dorian shouted. “Get back here!”

“Dorian!” He heard Cole’s shout and turned in time to see a nearby dragonling take an arrow in each eye, a bolt in the center of its forehead, and a knife through its heart. The rogues all grinned at him.

“Snuffed it!” Sera smiled, satisfied. “Watch your back better, yeah?” She turned and loaded arrows to her bow to shoot the dragonspawn farther off.

“I’ll do that,” Dorian called the spirit of the slain dragonling to fight for him as he searched the sky. Where in damnation had they gone? A star was falling from the sky. No- not a star. “Incoming!” he shouted, grabbing the back of Varric’s coat as he ran. The boulder of ice hit the space where they’d been with a crash, throwing shards in every direction. Dorian cursed, “Cole!” He ran straight back to the site of the impact where he’d spotted the spirit a moment before the ice landed, a healing spell already winding its way through his fingertips. A press of heat to the side of his neck. He turned to find soft blue eyes peering at him from under the wide brim.

“Thanks,” Cole murmured, smiling shyly, then darted through a dragonling to reach the other side of the peak and the Warden who was fending off two more of the creatures.

“Where are they all coming from?”

“They keep coming!” Hawke twisted her staff back behind her back, “It’s like they want to die. Fall back!” she added on a shout and pulled a massive conflagration down onto a trio of dragonspawn as her brother and the Iron Bull scampered out of the way.

“Big one on her way!” the Templar called, pointing at the high dragon sweeping down towards them again. Aran was halfway up its back when it landed, daggers deep under her scales, grinning like a madman, his white hair matted with blood.

“Hello again!” he grinned. “Fancy seeing you all here!”

Dorian threw a barrier over him, cloaking him in protective power, then drew the great beast’s fallen children back to life to attack her wounded flank.

“Hey, fire-fingers!” Sera shouted at Hawke, lifting her bow, “Light me up!” Her arrow caught fire an instant before she loosed it, sending it streaming through the air into the high dragon’s eye. “Nice! Again!”

“That had to hurt!” Varric laughed, winching Bianca for another knee-shot.

“Watch your flank!” Carver called and the Iron Bull dodged another sweeping claw, twisting around bring his ax swinging into the dragon’s leg.

“She’s charging up!” Stroud bolted from under the beast where he’d been hacking the insides of her forelimbs. “Run!”

“Got it! I got it!” Aran shoved his dagger deep into the high dragon’s neck, tearing down, then shoved his arm in through the wound to the building brightness of its hydrogen glands.

“Aran!” Varric shouted. 

“What the actual Void-” Stroud winced as Dorian watched, horrified.

The dragon opened its mouth to pour a stream of ice at them… but nothing happened. Its teeth glistened. Its massive tongue flexed, lifting to reveal the pockets through which the ice would spend… and… a glow fluttered in the back of its throat. Black and green light spasming. Aran had his head thrown back in a long, grinding keen, teeth gritted, eyes shut tight, his entire body encased in flickering blue light. The dragon loosed a scream of its own in place of its attack, shaking its head. Aran was thrown clear by the movement, hitting the ground on his shoulder and rolling somewhat drunkenly back to his feet, staggering slightly. “Yours!” he called, stumbling another step before dropping to his ass in the snow.

“ _Taarsidath-an halsaam_!” the Iron Bull howled, whirling to bring his ax across the dragon’s neck with a mighty cleave, just as Carver and Stroud stabbed upwards into its chest, arrows sprung out of its torso like spikes, and its head burst into flame.

The beast’s scream died as it did, its massive body toppling to the snow.

“I am not cleaning this up,” Hawke said archly.

“I suppose you helped that time,” Carver panted, leaning a little heavily against Stroud. “A little.”

“Helped?” she laughed. “Give me a break. I kept you from dying at least six times!”

“Because no one else would put up with your bullshit.”

“Nobody wander off,” Varric scrubbed Bianca with his elbow. “There might be more of them.”

“Is everyone alright?” Aran asked, blearily.

“Yeah!” Sera was hopping. Hopping up and down in the snow, creating bloody slush where she stood. “I mean, yes. I’m alive. Really… alive!”

“That’s the spirit!” the Iron Bull groaned, smoothing his hand over the fallen dragon’s horns. “Oh, she’s a beauty, isn’t she? They must have been mates.”

“Shit ending for a love story,” Varric grunted.

"Any more dragonlings we see in these mountains, we give a wide berth," Aran murmured. "Let them live."

Cole knelt next to Aran, hesitated, then looked at Dorian. Lost.

 _Hell_ , he thought as he reached them. They all knew Cole had to maintain his distance, but it had to be hell, not being able to wrap around Aran when he was sitting, addled, in the snow. “Check him for wounds, would you?” he said loudly and watched as Cole bent, relieved, to flatten his hands on Aran’s back, ostensibly doing as he was told. Dorian smoothed his thumbs across Aran’s blood-flecked cheeks. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

“You used the mark.” It wasn’t a question, but Aran nodded slightly. “Lyrium?” Aran shook his head immediately, hard.

“No! _No_. No, thank you.”

“Alright,” Dorian lifted a brow. “Prophet’s laurel?”

“I’ve herbs in my pack. I’ll smoke them when we camp.” He exhaled softly: a breath of a laugh, “Gets the blood pumping, huh?”

“ _Are_ you injured?” Dorian asked quietly. Cole was resting his forehead against Aran’s back, stroking his back beneath the strapped notebook.

Aran kissed him. And kissed him. And kissed him.

Dorian licked his lips when they finally parted, resting his forehead against Aran’s. “Not really an answer, but I’ll take it.”


	4. clouds rearrange

Stroud could sing. After his third pint of Bull’s terrible, terrible "ale", the Warden transformed from taciturn warrior to effervescent songbird. As he swayed with Carver and the Bull, singing bawdy sailor songs and Orlesian folk tunes at the top of his lungs, Dorian sipped from his flask. The herbs Aran was smoking were odious and slightly spicy. Distantly familiar. He squinted at the smaller man hazed in smoke. ”You’re _positive_ that you don’t want lyrium?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t mean to push, only it’s what Adan and Solas both suggested and it has worked in the past-“

“No.”

“This… herbal remedy... is better?”

“Yes.”

He certainly _sounded_ sure of himself. Still. Dorian huffed, “It smells like a skunk. A dying one. Who’s been rolling in a Tevinter midden.”

Aran snorted a laugh, but he blew his smoke downwind. “Better?”

“By a small modicum.” He leaned forward, “What is it exactly?”

“Amrita vein, prophet’s laurel, dragonthorn, and ghilan'nain's bounty. Helps the pain,” he flexed his hand, “and eases some of the… other things.”

Dorian thought of what Cole had said. “The fear.”

Aran’s gaze skittered to him, “Sure. We can call it that.”

“What would _you_ call it?” The sigh that escaped Aran’s lips was too long and deep for a man of his years… Then again… he was older than Dorian now, wasn’t he? Was he? White hair and scars made his age hard to gauge. Seven years he’d said, only that seemed… too much and not enough.

“Remembering.” Aran cocked his head to the side, “I’d call it remembering. You know, for a while there, I had no idea who I was, where I’d come from, what I was doing. When I finally started piecing things back together, it felt like a gift, but now… now I think forgetting some things would be… maybe not better. Easier, certainly.” From the tent across the way, a series of pitched definitively Sera-like giggles speared the song making the trio of men smirk as they continued. “Trust Sera to cozy up to the only mage in the world who distrusts mages as much as she does,” Aran smiled warmly.

Dorian allowed for the distraction. The idea of Aran stranded in time without even his own mind and memories to ground him was thoroughly disconcerting. And frustrating, because how do you protect someone from something that has already happened? “What happened to make her hate us so much?” he asked instead.

“She doesn’t _hate_ mages. She has deep concerns. Warranted. And not my story to tell. Ask her sometime. She likes talking.”

“And you?”

“I like talking, too. Oh- you mean _talking,_ don't you? Now?”

Dorian tested the curl of his mustache with his pinky, watched the way the movement made Aran smile reflexively, “Unless you’d like to conjure up another dragon.”

“That was a great fight, though, right? Gods- two high dragons in one day.”

“It was… stimulating.”

“The Iron Bull is going to be hard for a week.”

Dorian choked a bit at that, smiling despite himself, “Likely so.”

The gears were at work, churning behind Aran’s faltering mask, altering his expression like phases of the moon. When he met Dorian’s gaze again, he wet his lip, “I know I said I’d tell you,” he began. “It’s just- I’m not-“ His eyes shifted. No. Filled. If Dorian hadn’t been sitting there watching him intently, he could have convinced himself it was a trick of the light, but one moment he was studying the shards of Fadelight through those so familiar blue eyes and then they… deepened, like a shallow dish being filled with rain, only the rain was the blue of lyrium and pure magic gleaming with silver ripples as bright and shining as a seaward storm.

 _Maker_ , _no_ , _don’t_ _let_ _him_ _go_ _again_ \- He started to shout for Cole but the spirit was there before he could open his mouth, huddling to Dorian’s side, tucking his hands into Dorian’s pockets. “It’s not what you think,” Cole whispered.

“What-“

“ _Raging storms, evil gods are they, ruthless demons created in the deepest vaults, are they, workers of evil are they, they lift their heads to evil, every day to evil, destruction to work_.” It was Aran’s mouth that moved, but his voice… no. Rushed whispering. Intent and intense. His expression vacant as what sounded like a hundred irritated librarians spoke through him. “ _Their mouths are open, that none can measure. The storm, the evil wind, takes vengeance. From city to city darkness work they, hurricanes mightily hunting the heavens are they, stalking in the height of dark city spires are they like lightning flashing to wreak destruction as forward they go. My message unto the ocean bring, unto the sun, who in the sky has sadly darkened. Bite at thine lips and fill thy mouths with wailing for this is my call, her call, her Calling, she is lost, darkening. Throne-bearers of the gods are they, befouling all. Robber-gods, gods of the universal away, evil and violent, mighty children. Evil are they, evil are they- The cavern in the mountain sky they enter, throne-stealers, disturbing the lily in the torrents, baleful are they, baleful are they. The blood will run as rivers through blackened cities and they will all weep. Hear my call, Sorrow and Pride, Compassion and Order, hear my call. She speaks. May the spirits of the earth remember, remember she is lost. She has fallen.”_ Dorian could mark the moment of Aran’s return by the recession of the sapphire and silver waters from his eyes. Back, gears still churning, “It’s only that I’m not sure where to start.” Aran wrinkled his nose, “You know?”

"No." Dorian did not know. He had forgotten how to breathe. He could feel Cole relax against him as the bright blue faded. “What.”

“Mythal,” Cole murmured.

Aran’s brows drew together. “Ah… maybe not there just yet, Cole, that’s… diving into the deep end, yeah?”

“Who has fallen?” Dorian asked and watched Aran’s sense of thoughtful calm break apart.

“He doesn’t know,” Cole answered for the man shattering before them.

“I need a piss!” the Bull announced with vim and vigor and strode off into the bushes.

Carver grinned, clapping Stroud on the back as the Warden continued with his third rendition of an Orlesian marching tune, “Now when he comes back, I say we try taking him from the left and knocking him on his ass.”

“Heard that!”

“Fucking qunari,” Carver scowled, lopsided and multiple sheets in the wind.

“What did they say this time?” Aran asked quietly.

Dorian shook his head, “Who is ‘they’?”

“It’s hard to explain…” Aran hedged.

“Mythal, the Mother goddess, speaking through her priests, of which he is the last.”

Aran looked at Cole quizzically. “Alright, maybe it isn’t that hard to explain.”

“Allow me to clarify this for myself, yes?” Dorian lifted a finger, “You have gone from Andraste’s Herald to Mythal’s… vessel?”

“I am not the vessel. The vessel is gone.”

Dorian lifted one arched brow, “You realize that isn’t remotely helpful.”

“Sorry.” Aran ducked his head, “I’m not her priest or her vessel. I’m only... what She needed. Someone who could thread through time and try to… fix things. Faithful and diligent. Moral without scruples. I did my best for Her, I really did, but now the vessel is gone and She is… mixed up… in- Stop looking at me like that. I’m not trying to be oblique. It’s just complicated.”

“I know you like riddles, Aran, but honestly.”

“It’s not- Look. I can try- She called me from… Ah… well. A bad time, let’s say. I was in the Fade. My mind was. Mostly. I think. As far as I’ve been able to reason so far, I think that my… psyche… was split between the Fade and the waking world. And my body was… elsewhere.” He looked pained even trying to talk about it, fragile in a way Dorian hadn’t really seen him before. He wanted to reach out, to tell him that it was alright, but it wasn’t. None of it was. And it wouldn’t be until they found a way to fix this. Which wouldn't happen until they understood just what 'this’ was. “I- I was… let’s say I was particularly vulnerable. And likely that’s why She was able to spot me. She pulled all of my parts back together as best She could and She sent me to Her temple. I was there… a long time. A really long time. I’m not sure how long, really. They didn’t measure it the way we do, they didn’t need to.”

Pulled his parts together? Aran absently pressed his fingers to the scars at his neck. Thin, threading, luminescent lines. Lightning he’d thought when he’d first seen them and it was easier to believe that was true. Easier. But not right, was it? Aran’s hand was shaking. Shaking. Dorian swallowed, hesitating, and folded his hands together when Cole shifted to give Aran more space. “They?”

“Her sentinels. The ancient elves who guard her temple.”

“And they speak through you?”

“No, not them. Her priests do. She does. Used to. I don’t know anymore. Ask Morrigan,” he frowned, “or Solas. Solas would know why she can’t speak any longer.”

Dorian frowned, “Because the vessel is gone.”

“Yes!”

Dorian rubbed his temple absently. “Alright. So you’re saying that some combination of a lost elven goddess and her collection of dead priests are using you to… what?”

“Stop the end of the world.”

There was the headache he’d been fearing. “Isn’t that what we’re doing? Right now?”

“No. Even when Corypheus _has_ managed to reach the Black City for the second time, that’s never the worst of it-”

“We’ve failed?” To his shame, Dorian had never really considered the possibility. Granted, he also hadn’t really imagined surviving the ordeal.

“That’s not the point. Seven entered, Dorian. _Seven_. What do you think happened to the other six? Corypheus was cast out, do you see? He was crass, power hungry, but all seven were supposed to be servants to their masters: the Old Gods. Seven entered, one left.” Aran stared at him, “Do you think the others simply vanished in a puff of smoke? _How_ did the Golden City turn black? The Maker had cast out the spirits from the Golden City when he turned from mankind, but the Old Gods, the elvhen, the Ancients… where did they all go?”

Dorian gazed into those otherworldly eyes. “Darkness, you said. Hunting the heavens.”

“Yes. They’re still out there, those other six - them and the gods they’re loyal to. If the Old Gods find them - the elvhen, the Ancients, the Maker… if they find them, there won’t be anything left. They will consume the world.” Aran bit his lip, “I think. It’s a working theory.”

“Oh, well, as long as it’s a _working_ theory-“ Dorian threw his hands in the air, rising, “It isn’t enough that the Imperium invaded the heavens-“

“Largely abandoned already-“

“-blackened the Golden City, destroyed the elves-“

“Elves destroyed themselves, actually-“

“And created Corypheus, the self-proclaimed Elder God, but now there are _more_ of these blighted ancient Magisters? What are they called? The Younger God? The Teensy-Weensy God?”

Aran tilted his head to the side. “You’re taking this well.”

“And you, my dumpling, let’s not forget _you_ , tugged about on an ancient elven leash through untethered time- as though the fate of the living world weren’t enough weight on a person's shoulders- trying to fix everyone else’s problems-“

“Dorian.”

“-jumping on blighted dragons-“

“Brilliant, I know-“

“What- How- and for what, when we’ve _failed_ , for fuck’s sake, before we’ve even begun, and I don't know how to keep you here-“

“Dorian-“

“And your bloody notebook is of no help whatsoever. For a Chantry archivist, your record keeping skills need severe work-“

“Dorian!“

He felt Aran touch his shoulder, pull him, and he spun towards that touch, ready to pounce on the magnificent scoundrel- only to see him dissipate into so much mist. He met Cole’s open, haunted gaze through the empty space where Aran had been. Nothing. Gone. 

“The fuck?” Carver pointed between them, blinking.

Dorian held his breath. Waited. _Come_ _back_. _Come_ _back_.

“What just- what-“

He couldn’t collapse. He needed to. Stay up, stay alert, fight, figure this out, that’s what was needed, that was what Aran needed from them all. Complacent, he’d gotten complacent, expecting him to just be there and now he was gone and who knew when- He stared at Cole. Looking anywhere else would break him. Be still. Hold those eyes. Some part of Aran was in that too wise, angular face. He didn’t need Cole’s gift to read the thoughts behind that soft, startled blue; if Cole was his link to Aran, then he was Cole’s. Maker save them all. 


	5. the water below gives a gift to the sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aran is gone, and the party must go on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cole POV

With Aran gone, the light begins to fade. Shadows creep closer, shaded wolves scent blood. Piece by piece, the fragile peace fractures. Dorian’s head is bent over parchment, mumbling, occupying Varric. Without Varric, Hawke grows more restless. With Hawke more restless, Sera loses patience. Carver tenses. Stroud studies me like a butterfly pinned to a board. Bull watches more, tenses more, prepares for trouble between us and against us. He is the only one looking outward now. Trouble and heartache move around and through us in murky eddies.

A small carving of a dog into Carver’s pocket. Yellow flowers with the roots still on into Sera’s boots. Shine the Warden’s saddle until it gleams, then add just enough dirt back to make the daily task necessary but simple. Dull the Bull’s blade every few days. Mushrooms among the kindling for the scent of home when the fire takes.

Varric… Varric is quiet inside. He pulls me more to here. Makes me a person. I need to be a person, now more than ever. I can’t leave. Can’t make them forget. Can’t stay as I am.

The horses are thirsty, but there’s so little water to drink. The brown snow gives way to brown sand, but the cold stays the same. The shadows wrap tighter. Hum the old folk songs about winter hunts. Refill the casks and flasks from the passing merchants and the store rooms of empty homes. Water. Must always find water. They need that. Press the fur cloak into Aran’s pack, hug it until it’s warm and smells familiar, then tuck it around Dorian when he sleeps. He wakes with lighter eyes, but the dark always creeps back. There’s a story Aran thinks of often; he learned it in the secret place when he didn’t know who he was. A lying king, too proud and too loud to serve, pushing endlessly against the will of the skies until the skies pushed back. Boulder rolling. Up and down. Up and down. To nowhere. Endless. Hopeless. They are all kings of their own hopelessness.

“How do you make them calm?” I ask Varric when he comes out of his tent in the morning. It is the best time, usually. He hasn’t yet begun to think of all the things that distract him.

“Who, Kid?” Tired. He has already been thinking today.

“Everyone. You talk and the fear fades, slipping to sleep. Not always happy, but not angry.”

There. The thoughts fade. Think with me. Here. Yes. “Most people are like cats,” Varric offers in his easy way. Watch and listen. Not just what he says, but how he says it. “They either puff up to look dangerous or they crouch down and hope you don't see them. You show them you're not a victim or threat, and they're in your lap and purring before you know it.”

It doesn’t help this time the way it should have. “Cats swat my feet even when no one can see me.”

“That explains a lot.” He watches, waiting.

Varric’s watching is one of the few watchings that Aran doesn’t mind. Dorian’s watching, he likes. Mine, he sometimes likes and sometimes doesn’t notice and sometimes gets very frustrated by. But Varric’s is… comfortable. Not a victim or a threat, he said. But they all think that I am both, without me doing anything at all.

“You’ve been busy,” Varric says and I am reminded that we are talking. Conversing. Converse to contemplation. “You getting any rest at all?”

“I don’t need to rest.”

“Maybe you don’t physically, but everyone needs a break now and then.” Varric squints in the morning light, half smiling, “I guess you get a break when everyone else does, huh?”

“There’s always hurt, but sometimes it’s quieter.”

“Yeah, I feel you.” Varric nodded, “Okay. Message received. What do you think? Stories or Wicked Grace?”

“Carver doesn’t have any money left.”

“Cards it is.”

The day is still shadowed, but they can all feel Varric plotting and it helps to lighten their moods which in turn lightens the load on the horses. Herbs in packs. Water in canteens. Padding under saddles. The fire flickers in the normal kind of darkness; they circle around Varric as he makes a show of shuffling and chides Carver on his empty purse.

Dorian ducks into his tent. He is always so surprised when I am here before him. The surprise helps to shake away some of his gloom. “What are you doing in here?” I ask to watch him startle. “The game is out there.”

Guilt and regret. There is so much of both filling him that it is hard to find the source. There isn’t just one. That’s the problem. Many pools all pouring into one narrow stream, overfilling it. Dorian shakes his head, “It’s been a long day.”

“That is _why_ -“ I point through the open flap at the others as Varric begins to deal. “That is why. _Light and heat, pulled from the Fade, if Mythal pulled him from there, maybe I can_ \- No, Dorian.”

“And why not.”

“Because She is a god. Are you a god?”

“Some have said-“

“No.”

Dorian is not happy with me. _Wet blanket_ . But blankets are good and heavy and necessary, wet or not. I take the brim of my hat between my fingers and tug it off, feeling the lantern light shine bright into my eyes. Try not to squint. _Eyes like summer skies and playful puddles that warm me straight to my fingertips. My lips around that tender flesh how long not enough taste that good nothing drunk and pierced to the core-_ “Stop.” His voice is rough. He doesn’t mean the word, but he wants to. I bring the hat back up, but he touches my wrist. Barely. Cold dots of contact against skin-covered bone. “Stop,” he says again.

I do. And I blow breath out and up, moving my bangs from my eyes, watch him watch my mouth. Just like playing the flute. He is breathless when I breathe. _Stop remembering that tongue. Stop it, stop it-_ I wet my lips and feel his heartbeat against my wrist.

“Are you- You are _cheating_.” He is annoyed and impressed.

“Cheaters have different rules than everyone else.”

“I thought you wanted me to play cards.”

I turn my arm so that his fingertips rest against my pulse. So he can feel the different rhythms of different hearts. Alive, I try to tell him without words. I am alive. “I am a person.”

“I know that, Cole.” He frowns a little. Guilt and regret still. Find the source, the source... “I’m sorry it can’t- this must be terribly confusing-“

“No.”

“It’s just…” His eyes dart towards the fire, the others. I tug the tent’s flap closed and he looks at me. “Cole.”

“Now it’s only us.”

“But it _isn’t_.” _They’ll kill us. They’ll set us on fire. They’ll trap me in my own head. They’ll-_

“I’ll protect you.”

Dorian laughs. “Oh, _will_ you? Who says I need protection?”

“ _He is so afraid his heart will be trampled in the dark._ But you aren’t afraid of that anymore. You are unlearning. You are learning to hope. You’re afraid of losing that hope in the light.”

“He’s _gone_ -“

“You are still here.”

“But-“

“He’ll come back.”

“Do you know that for certain? And if so, _how_ do you know?”

“Pain always ends. One way or another.”

Dorian’s throat works, swallowing nothing. “ _That_ isn’t nearly as uplifting as you intended it to be.”

I hold my arm out again, so he can touch my wrist. The touching makes things better for him. The way that helping makes things better for me. Connection. We aren’t so different, he and I. We are open nerve endings seeking, always seeking.

He winces and tucks his hands away. “You don’t have to do that.” Wanting, wishing, wondering- debauched, dangerous, deviant-

“I’ve made a mistake.”

“No, Cole, you- are very kind to… offer, I suppose, but-“

“I do like it.”

He blinks. “Pardon?”

“ _Was he satisfied does he think of me when I am dreaming does he dream or sleep_ \- I don’t sleep. I always dream. I do think of you. I was satisfied.” I tilt my head, hiding behind the fall of hair in case he does not like my answer, “I do like it. I want to help, yes, I do, and that’s part of it, yes, but I also… I am a person.”

“I see...”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.” He looks at the hat in my hand. “You said before… you said that you believe that I need… intimacy… for healing-“

“You do. Not just that, but the kind where you’re seen.”

“So you said.”

I put the hat on the ground between us and let it go. I don’t like letting it go, but that is part of being a person. Making choices. _Martyr_ , he thinks. “Dorian,” I speak quietly so he has to listen. “If I could not see you or like you, then it wouldn’t help. It would be worse. Not selfish,” I correct him. “Worse. Empty. Meaningless. _Hopeless fumblings in the dark_ -“

“Yes, I grasp the concept,” he interrupts irritably.

“You aren’t meaningless. This isn’t selfish. If I couldn’t do what was needed to help the hurt, I would find another way.”

He likes being watched, but he is uncomfortable being seen. Like new boots that need to be worn to stop rubbing at the heel. “Alright.”

“But I can.” I hold my arm out again. “I am a person.”

“Saying that over and over doesn’t make it more true.”

“I don’t say it to make it true. I say it because it makes me happy that it _is_ true. For a long time, I was trying to be him, to live for him, and I always will, but now I also live for me. And that is wonderful.”

He smiles before he realizes it, too late to stop now, and gently, carefully, touches my wrist as though I am made of glass. _Might as well be_ , he thinks, imagining me translucent with the light pouring through instead of around me. He feels the pulse and watches. Watches me so carefully that the look might shatter me more quickly than any press of hands. “I know you are a person, Cole.”

“You are a person, too.” _Skin warm as summer days, softer than it looks, does one get used to this, did Aran? What is he waiting for?_ “I’m not waiting.”

“You realize that’s unsettling.” That isn’t the word on the inside. The word doesn’t exist. Thoughts colliding like a kaleidoscope. Dangerwonderguiltpleasureregrethungershame - _not shame there now no never how no gold grass cloud sails stomach so tense I could throw up_ \- “What _are_ you doing then?”

“Listening.”

“To me.”

I nod.

“To my head.”

I try to see the sunshine fading glint from another angle, see my head tilt in the dark mirror of his eyes.

“Terribly interesting, is it?”

“You think a lot of things all at once. Different and the same, so many colors, jagged and offset and then one thing clicks and a line of them all fall in behind it like soldiers, but there are always more.”

“Aran’s similar, I imagine.”

“No…” I study his fingers. Long and strong, the callouses from his staff at the curve between his thumb and forefinger, the broad flat of his palm. Those calluses are smooth, I know, and smell faintly of spices from the oils he uses on them. I could smell those oils on me before. Before. “Not at all.” He is surprised. Disappointed. “All your thoughts have places to be. And they belong to you, each and every one. When you remember things, they are hazy at first and then come into focus, like a lantern does when you first open your eyes. He is everywhere at once, and sometimes nowhere. His voice gets lost among the others. And the memories are… sharp.” I put my fingers on my wrist next to his. “You couldn’t help him if you were the same.”

“I can't help him now, either.”

“We are helping. We are going to Adamant. We will save the Wardens.”

“He told you that, I suppose? Or you read it from his mind?”

“No.” I touch his fingertips; they scamper like rabbits, brushing my skin in their escape. “I believe that we will. Hope.” I catch his hand and bring it back, carefulgentle, rest it like a leaf upon a pond.

“Finished listening to my brain now, are you?” His skin is goose flesh, tight and trembling. Invisible feathers ruffling.

I shake my head. “You’re letting the shadows in. When I touch you, you glow bright and fast.”

“Lovely,” he huffs, thinking _Maker, I’m a monster_.

“It is.”

“Maybe I oughtn't to glow at all, have you thought of that?”

“You think too much about what you should and shouldn’t do.” I show him, lips curving, breath even, and he tenses and unsteadies in response. Like a cat. Not a victim, not a threat. He frets. Picks it apart and pieces it together. Temptation- _buzzing heart racket in my ears must think mustn’t fall not again not like this_ \- “I like it,” I remind him.

“The _helping_. You like the helping.” He says it to himself even though he is speaking to me. “Your body, it’s… imperfect. But it’s clearly not possessed.” Details for orientation. He seeks a compass, guidance, center, “Do you actually look like this?”

“Yes.”

“The form is yours.”

“Yes.”

“But a spirit's true form is always monstrous, or at least unnatural.”

“The world doesn't make sense to them. It's too real.” Sometimes, I don’t mention, it is too real for me, too, but that happens less and less now. “That's why they look wrong here.”

“But in the Fade, I mean, do you still look like this?”

“I don’t belong there.”

“I understand, but if you _were_ to be there, for a visit, say, would you look the same as now?”

“I would look scared.”

He is a fish, attempting to draw air from his spiraling thoughts. “Yes, well, we don’t want that.”

“Thank you,” I say, because he means it and because he knows not everyone would care.

“So this is how you want to look?”

“I want to help. Looking doesn't matter.”

“It does to me.”

“Yes.” I know, because he thinks about the colors and the shapes and where the hair is and is not and whether it should or should not be. I know that he likes the shapes of my bones, but he doesn’t like when I look at his too closely. Sunlight and summer days, he thinks, and feels them and wants to wind my hair between his fingers but also doesn’t. He knows what it feels like. He knows he wants more than that. _Exquisite,_  he thinks, and I smile because the word feels like glimmering gemstones and finely carved mahogany.

He blinks, looks away. “So what other people look like… that doesn’t make a difference to you.”

“Should it?”

 _Yes_ , he thinks, and I see the hours, days, months of his life focused on just that. Not just the physical appearance, but the presentation, the mannerisms, the articulation- an elaborate mask that becomes more a part of him with each time he dons it. “It does to most people. It helps us sort who we like and who we don’t.”

“But the outside changes. The inside is the part that tells you the important things.”

“Most of us can’t see the inside.”

“I can.”

He opens his mouth, closes it, _like a fish_ , like he is trying to drink the words he wants from the air, “When you look at someone then, you don’t notice anything at all?”

“You want to know if I think that you’re beautiful, because that matters to you,” he winces, gaze slanting away from me again. “I do. You have tender glinting sunlight underneath and behind your eyes, bright flashing scales like the dragons in the mountains with sharp edges and needy tendrils.” He is uncomfortable with the truth. I try a simpler one, “I like your clothes. They’re like the Fade. The good parts.”

“The stuff of dreams? An explosion of color and sensation wrapped in an enigma?”

“They’re shiny.” He blinks rapidly, dark lashes fluttering feathers against soft sand. He can’t get his footing with me, parry, duck, hit every time anyway. He feels drunk, the good kind, all tipping into _heedlessness hedonism he he he wants- no-_ “Aran likes your mustache. The way it curls and flexes against his cheek when he kisses-”

“Don’t.”

“I think it feels like cobwebs.”

He snaps from pain to laughter, unbalanced, staring. “Pardon?”

“I like to feel him feeling you. I liked feeling you feeling us.”

Rush. Heat. Blood flows into his cheeks, his hands, his belly. “I can imagine…ah. That was…” Touch upon touch, echoes, reverberating back through his skin, feeling his own fingertips on flesh, their hands on each other, every inch of flesh that moves, all recreated on his own form, _the way my mouth felt on him on me all those wasted hours in my teens trying to bend when I could have risked everything and found a bloody spirit to_ \- “...an interesting trick.”

I watch his thoughts ebb and twist, roll like seals, sated and starving. “You use different words on the outside and the inside.”

“One shouldn’t speak of the erotic candidly.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s-” _Insane, trying to talk about sex with a spirit, even one that I’ve- madness, utter and complete-_ “Improper.”

“But you and I both know what you’re thinking.”

“Then there’s even less reason to say it aloud, isn’t there?” he snaps and immediately is irritated with his tone and unapologetic about what has been said. “How does that work exactly? That… reflection of sensation you created.”

“I bent my experience back to you, so that you could feel that I can feel things.”

“So it was specific. On purpose.”

I look at him blankly.

“I mean to say- it was physical because you wanted us to know that you were experiencing the physical.”

“Yes.”

“So what I felt, when you were- that was actually what you felt?”

“What else would it be?”

“Conjuring- What I imagined you might feel- Perhaps some memory dredged up and made to feel real-”

“No. It was what I felt. And what I felt you both feeling.” I look at that cobweb mustache, the curl of dark hair resting on his brow, “Am I handsome?”

“I- are you what?”

“You say you’re handsome all the time. You think it. Dream it. It’s important to you. Am I? I can’t tell.”

“You’re all right.” He shifts, prodding the hat with his gaze, “without this.”

“I like my hat,” I tell him, and it’s true. It is one of the first things I chose for myself, it protected me from the world when it became too much, and I do not want to ever let it go. Not completely.

“Yes, I know you do. It’s fine. It’s-” He frowns, “I love Aran.” He is testing the words he hasn’t spoken aloud, they feel strange on his tongue, emerging into the world and twisting back to twine like thorny vines around his heart and lungs, pulling, tearing, pulsing.

”Yes.” I rest my fingers on his wrist and let him weigh whether he wants them there. He relaxes slowly, allowing us to sit with the quiet beat of our pulses. “I don’t feel the same things that you do, not the same way. It’s different. But we share the word. We share some of the colors of him. Isn’t it strange that there’s only one word in the trade tongue for all the different shades of love there are? Love for friends, for siblings, for children, for husbands, for lovers, for books… And those are only the categories, then you get into the uniqueness of each cord. His mother loved each of her children differently. She saw his love for trouble, it worried her and pleased her. Your father-” His arm tenses under my fingers and I let us sink into heartbeat tides again.

“You bent your experience back, you said.” He is reciting lines in his head, calculating patterns, colors and patterns twisting through the numbers and letters, anything to push those memories away. “Can you do that with your pain?”

The thought is- black tar drowning lungs voiceless screaming void torn through against my will shiver back into place not fitting any more again and again. He holds my arm when I try tug away and I forget how to glide through the grip, white hot angerfear roaring in through my open head and into my stomach, burning every inch. His fingers are cold where they grasp my face, a brief respite from the heat, enough to bring me back, shadows and concern and regret. Simple. He wants to be touched. His skin aches. His heart thuds and I escape into his need, pouring like water, scalding, past his lips. His tongue is cool, his breath is warm, I wrap those sensations around me and the shocksurprisegleefear and suck on the eagernervous tip of his tongue, drawing him into me. We weave like soft reeds, building a shelter between us in which both of us can curl and hide. I from light and he from shadow. Kittens in a storm. He is helping me and I think I feel him start to understand the way that helping heals me. He helps to heal us both and I fall to rest gently within the sunshine and lapping water and rough boards and longing looks of his mind. He is watching me again, so close, thinking of the way that I taste, when I climb out again. I lean my lips to his, confused when he shakes his head. “You want to.”

“One doesn’t always do what one wants.” His voice is rough, but controlled. He doesn’t think he has control, but he does. Sometimes it eats at him, weighs him, and he wants it gone, even when he doesn’t believe it’s there.

“Because things are in the way. Nothing is in the way now.”

Dorian taps his temple and I nod. “All right.” I am content to be a person, my heart returning to a regular rhythm matching his. Outside, Carver curses spectacularly. Sera’s laughter curls like floating petals on a breeze. We are touching knees, breath twining between us, still. I sit back.

“Cole.” He is full of sliding, running, galloping armies of thoughts, all laying siege to a puzzle.

“Yes.”

“When you take a drink out of Aran’s mind… how much do you see?”

“Too much.”

“Do you remember it? Those pieces?”

I frown.

“Could you write them down, the fragments?”

“Write?”

“Or tell me, so that I could.”

“The things he remembers?”

He glints hot and bright like the reflection of the desert sun across the diaphanous wastes. “If we can sort through it… he said he doesn’t know what fits where. If we can find the clues and help him figure that out, what belongs where, that would help him, wouldn’t it? And help me understand just how this whole mess works, find a pattern, find a way to bring him home.”

“If he knew, he would do it.”

“I know, I know, but he has to live it, and live with the memories, which I wager he has a hard time thinking of from time to time, as I do, as you do with your own, yes? Don’t think about yours. I won’t ask you to. I was wrong to ask.” I breathe, relieved, and follow the bouncing excitement of his voice. “You see someone else’s hurt and you can see ways to help it, ways they wouldn’t see even though they live with it every day. We can do that for Aran. Piece it together from what you’ve seen.”

He believes. He has so much hope, anticipation, faith in us- I nod and watch him scramble for a quill. “We will help him.”

“Yes, we certainly will.” He kisses my skin, above my eyes below my brows, sighs, “Ah, Ocellus, we will solve this thing. You mark my words.”

I do.


End file.
